Chris wishes his Dad had taught him that “Loving what you do helps you do more of what you love.” Let’s hear what he has to say about it.
A great quote to begin with “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die” –
Another great quote from an alcoholic. “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. They wake in the morning and that’s the best they’re going to feel all day”
Ok let’s begin the show.
When you meet a person who is on purpose, within 30 seconds they are talking about it. You know they are doing what they love by the speed in which they swing the conversation to their topic.
It has been interesting to observe the backlash I get from people from living on purpose, doing what I love. My own children feel abandoned, my brother thinks I don’t care. My neighbours think I don’t have time for them. And im not involved in social clubs. As a comparison, I meet what is called a balanced person doing everything society would credit them with being a good healthy person, making people happy, socialising, dancing with family strangers and keeping the peace. When you think about it, they are doing a miracle.
Even if you meet a person at work who is obsessed with the kids you meet a person who is juggling life. Add to that person the need to please and remain in collaboration with the other half of the parent equation plus have a relationship with them or someone else, then add some health activity which requires frequent Physiotherapy visits, add Covid or the flu and as you want them run, you can only be in awe. Nothing gets done in half. They want to be perfect in everything it’s amazing.
The best this miracle person can hope for is satisfaction, and at the worst, exhaustion. Driving through traffic to get to work or handling domestic politics to enable working from home, either way, there is external pressure mounting to perform. The kids want more, the partner wants more, the office wants more and more and more, and of course, we’re all ageing and so, the ease at which sport and competitive sport in particular comes, is in reduction, it demand more time.
About 20 years ago, I made a choice, and that is to live and work with love. If I go for a walk, I love it. If I go to the gym I love it. If I coach someone, or do something for my financial planning, I love it. I love my home and if I have to buy or sell, I love it. I either love what I do, or I don’t do it. I don’t divide my home or partnership into his and hers. I divide it into doing what I love and someone else doing what I don’t. That someone else can be a hired help, a neighbour or my partner. Like cooking. When I am single, I don’t cook. I don’t waste my time. I eat every meal out. I find a cafe I love and eat there. The cafe knows me, knows what I eat and that’s easy. I eat the same breakfast at the same cafe. And if my partner who loves to cook is not around for breakfast, out and about, I still go to the cafe. I don’t cook.
YEs, you can see that some things I do are not based on cost ecconomics or necessarily getting the most nutrition. I use supplements for that. I base my choices on doing what I love.
I love bike riding too. But I don’t love doing bike riding where I can easily be dead. So, I mostly use the bike turbo during the week with a bike riding app that takes me all over the world. I love bike riding even though it really hurts my arse and burns my legs, and now I bought a gravel bike like most other bike riders in the fantasy that I’ll someday find gravel trails off the road within a convenient distance of bondi, I buy the bike knowing the fantasy but I love bike riding, and why not dance with the devil on a few toys I love?
I love dogs, but I will never own a dog. I travel. I’m a fire constitution. When we don’t travel we get antsi. I travelled for 300 bed nights a year for 10 years. I loved it. Hotel after hotel. Taxi after taxi. Jet lag and airports and flying, none of it healthy. But I loved it. I made myself love it. I travelled business class because if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t love it. That cost significantly more but it meant I loved flying and airports. I loved eating in airports, I had no choice and I chose wisely because I wanted to feel good and not feel bad because that would change how I feel and that can influence whether I loved travel.
I loved customs and immigration queues. I had a driver at most airports waiting and they respected my loss of control of airport time. So, I had nothing to worry about. I didn’t book appointments straight off the plane because I didn’t want to be in panic, got to mode. My choice of airports to transit was judicious to avoid congestion, and my connecting times were never, ever, airline recommended, they were way longer so I could sit and read a book or do emails or this blog between flights. For me, waiting for a plane was something I loved only if I was at the gate or in the club lounge waiting.
I do what I love. But there’s something about doing what you love that’s counter convention. and I’ll list them.
- Not all my choices are based on the lowest cost. I base my choices on doing more of what I love and less of what I don’t.
- I don’t waste time because I don’t love wasting time. That doesn’t mean I don’t sloth out watching the idiot box but I choose it to relax my body and mind. I choose what I watch carefully. For example, I still watch Seinfeld and I’ve seen every episode 20 times. It relaxes me and makes me smile. Friends the tv show does too, a bit.
- I have learnt the art of doing life at my pace which is my love to pace. If I am going to deliver something to someone, such as a coaching session or a keynote or a paper, I approach it and the time at my love to pace, no panic, no emergency, even if the client is in panic, I’m not. I don’t go slow, I go at an intensity I call my love to pace.
- I divide situations into time waste and time important. I don’t do stuff that’s in the time waste. For me, because I’m a fire constitution, sitting around the fire with family, is time waste. I’m clear, I love them, I’m here for them, and they for me, but communication with people has to be loving and most family communication isn’t. It’s mostly about validation. I leave that, like cooking, for others.
- I’ve mastered the Innerwealth technology which in a nutshell is the ability to turn anything I do, that I choose to do, into something I love to do. This art is amazing. Nothing else to me is more important. The art of turning whatever is happening in life into something to love is so life transforming it’s the greatest miracle. I was once a run for it guy, I ran for things that I loved, I always wanted to love what I did, but I thought that was a magnet always drawing me toward the next thing. But that’s impossible. RIGHT NOW, IN THIS MOMENT, I AM DOING WHAT I LOVE.
- The ultimate outcome of doing what you love is WANTING TO BE HERE. A suicide ideation is the opposite. A person can say “I’d rather be dead than here.” that’s the opposite to doing what you love. Doing what you love is wanting to be here NOW. Picking up dog shit with a thin plastic bag and feeling the hot, mushy shit between your hand you eat with between a micron thin piece of garbage bag you have to trust isn’t porous, I love it, if I am doing it, I love it. I love love love love love picking up dog shit in a thin plastic bag and smelling that poop for another 10 minutes and worried it’s all leaked out. The key here, is sometimes we do get stuck in airports, sometimes we do have to share a house with someone with a hormonal full moon rage going on. We can’t run around avoiding these challenges. Sometimes we do have anxiety about something. That is the fodder Innerwealth helps you convert into love rather than run away from.
My Dad stayed with my step mom. She burnt the house, crashed her car, threw things, screamed, she came to my school drunk and half dressed and got lost in the sports gym, but, my Dad stuck with it and once in a while I know they had moments of love. It’s pretty heroic if you ask me. In his mind, 2 boys aged 10 and 14 needed someone to cook and wash and feed them while he did what he loved and he worked out a way to love it. Not an innerwealth way, but at least he laughed allot. That shows he was giving it a good go.
There are a few signs when someone is not turning life into a love fest. I’ll share them:
- They complain allot about their life and those in it. (it’s almost a suggestion that someone else in the world controls the love in their life)
- They blame the work or the company or the boss for agitation. (agitation is a big sign of loveless life)
- They are more committed to family expectations than living. (doing what others expect, might please them but will piss us off)
- They are invested heavily in all seven areas of life and can’t therefore focus on something more important than ego. (ego can never feel love)
- They are fluctuating in their life between doubt and determination, both are either side of doing what they love. (in fact they are perfect excuses why not and why to avoid doing what they love because there could be a cost to it – such as me buying meals instead of cooking them)
- They feel small, no matter how big they are physically. And so there’s a defensiveness or validation search, which, if you’d like to know the warning signs of not living life in a love fest, that’s it.
Thank you for following this episode and please share it with those who might enjoy it.
With Spirit.
Chris
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